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Entrepreneurial Traits of Business Analysis Practitioners

In my previous blog post What do Business Analysis and Entrepreneurship Have in Common?, I outlined some high-level similarities between business analysis and entrepreneurship. Now let’s explore some detailed parallels between the two.

Assuming that business analysis has much in common with entrepreneurship, what specific traits do entrepreneurs have that are similar to people who do business analysis? While I was assembling a list I found the common skills and traits were growing and growing. Since there are so many traits in common between business analysis and entrepreneurship a table was the only way to properly summarize them. See Table 1.

What has always fascinated me about business analysis is the ability to change organizations for the better by contributing to new and effective solutions. You might say I love change. Doing BA work fuels my need to be part of positive change and the skills I work to improve seem to be those that are also useful for an entrepreneur. Given that I am co-owner of a training company, it is a good thing!

But whether you are an internal entrepreneur within an organization or are thinking of striking out on your own, the skills and qualities in the right-hand column will serve you well. Conclusion: if you are a business analysis practitioner, you are in good shape to become an entrepreneur. Look for more posts on types of entrepreneurs and the three important things entrepreneurs need to be successful.

Table 1. Portions adapted from The Reluctant Entrepreneur by Michael Masterson

References

The Reluctant Entrepreneur by Michael Masterson, 2012, John Wiley and Sons

Creating a Business You’ll Love – Top Entrepreneurs Share their Secrets, 2011, edited by Ronnie Sellers, Sellers Publishing, Inc.

The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries, 2011, Random House Inc

Richard Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA

Richard Larson, PMP, CBAP, PMI-PBA, was the founder of and is now a consultant for Watermark Learning. He is a successful entrepreneur with over 35 years of experience in product development, business analysis, project management, training, and consulting. As an internal entrepreneur, Rich led the development of several Watermark Learning online products as a business analyst and product owner. Rich is a frequent speaker at Business Analysis and Project Management national conferences and IIBA® and PMI® chapters around the world. He has contributed as a lead author to the BA Body of Knowledge version 2.0 and 3.0 and was a lead author on PMI’s Business Analysis Practice Guide. He and his wife Elizabeth Larson have co-authored five books on business analysis.

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Business Analyst says:

March 25, 2019 at 4:54 am

Great article. interesting stuff to read. I was searching this topic and finally got on this site. thanks for this post. please share latest updates related to SCRUM. as a business analyst, this topic is so important to understand.good luck for next article.